Urbie Dodgeball

Urbie Dodgeball

MechWarrior is a GAME. Games are supposed to be fun. In fact, Dictionary.com shows the following for a definition.

1.	an amusement or pastime.

2.	the material or equipment used in playing certain games

3.	a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators.

Webster’s says the following

A contest with rules to determine a winner

An amusement or pastime

The game equipment needed to play a game

As you can see, both definitions are very similar and both mention “an amusement or pastime”.

And what is ‘an amusement’?

Amusement

Noun

1. A feeling of delight at being entertained.

2. An activity that entertains.

So again we get back to the entertainment thing. Entertainment should be fun

Define fun? Ok

Fun

Adjective

1. Providing enjoyment; pleasantly entertaining; "an amusing speaker"; "a diverting story"; "a fun thing to do".

Noun

1. Activities that are enjoyable or amusing; "I do it for the fun of it"; "he is fun to have around"

MechWarrior is fun. I have spent countless hours in Sunder playing MechWarrior and trying different things.

Leagues are fun too. They are much more competitive than just playing in open servers like Sunder, but they are still fun. The Blood Pearls belong to MechCombat League and we are having some fun there.

Sometimes you just need a break. Sunder gets pretty competitive and any league will also get very competitive. Our society has always been such that the individual is pushed to be a winner, to have success, to be the best. This carries over in to our pastime, our amusement, our fun. When we get time to play the game, we jump in front of our computers and we build the meanest, toughest battlemech we can and we go online to find the best players around and we do our damn best to destroy them before they destroy us.

That’s all fine and it adds to the enjoyment, the fun for a lot of us most of the time. Every once in a while you just want to play to be playing and it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it only matters that you are having fun.

I present to you, Urbie Dodgeball. Just for fun. I gotta say, this stupid rendition of Solaris brings back the reason I love this game as much as I do. Urbie Dodgeball is nothing but pure fun. Sure it is competitive, but it is all in fun. What? What did you say? You never heard of it? Well sit back, get some popcorn, you favourite drink and let me explain Urbie Dodgeball to you.

What do I need to play Urbie Dodgeball and get in on all this fun, you might ask. Simple. You need MechWarrior4 Mercs installed and updated to MP3.02.b. Then you have to have an internet connection (if you are reading this, then chances are you have an internet connection and probably MW4 Mercs too).

Now the next thing you need is something more like something you need to do instead of something you need to have. Start up the game and go to the mech lab. Create a new mech, an Inner Sphere UrbanMech. Name it Dodgeball or something that will be easy or you to remember. Remove all your electronics except jump jets. Yes you will need these even if you are a die hard ground pounder. Go to the weapons sections and remove ALL the weapons. Then go to the Armour section and remove ALL the armour. Yes ALL of it. I SAID ALL of the armour! Go back to the Weapons tab and load your little Urbie with a Long Tom. Now go back to the Electronics tab and add a heat sink and ECM or 2 heat sinks. Your speed should be 52kph and you should have .1 ton left over. You can increase your speed using 1 of the heat sinks for speed upgrades, but DO NOT USE ANY LEFT OVER TONNAGE for ARMOUR!!! NO SIR, DON’T DO IT!

Don’t forget to apply your favourite camouflage, make your Urbie as purty as possible. This is very important.

Urbie Dodgeball, as you can see is played with IS Urban Mechs with Jump Jets, Long Toms and NO ARMOUR. Dodgeball is played in ‘arena’ maps, preferably small ones so that the action is contained to a small area. The Jungle or The Factory are perfect. OF course you have to play 2 or 3 rounds and you must finish by playing the last round in the Coliseum. The Object of the game is to get the most kills using your Long Tom or by using the DFA (Death from Above) Maneuver.

Want to talk about fun? This is hilarious. If you are not a Long Tom user, it takes a bit to get used to flinging Toms shells accurately enough to do damage to any other Urbie running about or shut down from over heating. Long Toms fire in an Arc and they have a lot of heat associated with them when you fire them (that’s why your use 1 or 2 heat sinks).

You look around the battlefield and see nothing but Urbies. That in itself is funny to see, but you see these Urbies running and jumping and firing Long Toms. You also see lots of explosions. It is not uncommon for a pilot to get 20 to 30 kills in a 30 minute bout as well as 20 deaths. One thing you really want to try to do is to get a twofer or a threefer. That would be to kill 2 or 3 at once.

You would also be surprised at how tough a no-armour Urbie is. They will take 3 or 4 Long Tom ‘hits’ before exploding. Except the ‘arm’ that contains the Long Tom, many times it gets blown off on the 1^st hit. The cool thing about Long Toms is that you don’t have to ‘hit’ the enemy, you just have to get close. They have a blast radius that affects everything in that radius with damage.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I have blown off my own arm shooting at an enemy only to hit a hill or wall in front of me. Doh! LOL! The IS Urbie has a 360 torso twist and 1 big arm, so it is the perfect mech for this action. You cant make one fast enough to avoid much fire (following the Dodgeball rules that is), so the targeting is relatively easy. That is also why you take jump jets. You cant run away from the blast zone, but you can jump high enough to avoid the damage. Again, it is very funny to see a bunch of jumping Urbies on ANY map.

Duncan Fischer had no idea Solaris could be so much fun. “now let me show you the sky” has a new meaning. “It’s Factory Time” does too. I would love to get George in Comms with us one time and let him ‘Duncan Fisher’ his way through an Urbie Dodgeball Match.

That’s another thing. Comms. Urbie Dodgeball is a lot of fun. It’s a literal blast. Joining in with all your combatants on Comms doubles the fun. Hearing each pilot as they try for kills and lose their weapons or score a twofer or land a perfect DFA, well, it just adds so much to what is going on. Hell, every once in while, I will break out into my best ‘Duncan Fischer’ voice and repeat some of his sayings from the solaris matches in the single player part of the game.

Urbie Dodgeball with 15 other MechWarriors all on comms is just about as much pure fun for fun that can be had. Sure you want to get the most kills and have your name show up on top when the round ends, but even if you don’t, you had a bunch of pure fun. In these days of tight money, rising costs, personal pressures, job stress, family stress and on and on, just having some good old, plain, non pressure playing fun is really hard to beat. It only takes a few shots before you figure out how to use the Long Tom effectively and before you know it, you are placing the perfect round in the gaggle of Urbies 500 meters away that are ramming each other cause they have no weapons and you are trying for that elusive threefer or even a fourfer!!!!

Sit back, relax. Build A Dodgeball Special Urbie. Host your own game or next time the Blood Pearls are playing Dodgeball, join us and get on comms with us. After playing 2 or 3 rounds, whether you won or got killed a lot, you tell me you didn’t have fun. IF you don’t have fun playing Dodgeball, you just don’t know how to have simple fun or you don’t want to.

MechWarrior is a game and games should be for fun and amusement. Urbie Dodgeball is one of the most amusing, fun times that anyone can have with this game. Even ol’ Webster himself would give us a positive nod on this one. Join us next time, wont you?